Peevish Indians

We are peevish! We are easily annoyed or irritated when someone says anything negative about India or Indians. All of you out there in the world, if you want to write about India, write something positive, write about our glorified ancient history, rich heritage and culture, celebrate our achievements in the software industry, or compliment us on our hospitality. But don’t write anything negative. We don’t believe you.

We don’t look at our garbage filled pavements, pot-hole ridden roads, or the sorrow on begging children. Actually, we don’t have any misery. If there is any, we have learnt to close our eyes when it appears. We don’t have AIDS, and if there is any news about AIDS, it is highly exaggerated. We don’t suffer from poverty; your definition of poverty doesn’t hold well for us. We want to be compared on purchasing power, not absolute per capita.

We are the world’s biggest democracy; don’t write about its flaws, because we don’t have any. We don’t have dowry deaths, we don’t have untouchability, there is no caste violence- they are things of the past. If they do happen, they are isolated incidents, exaggerations and propaganda campaigns. Where we live, those things don’t happen.

We have learnt to live with corruption and therefore it’s not a problem for us, it’s actually a way of life, the middle path, which we Indians have learnt and which the West will learn when it gets civilized. We have learnt to live with all inequities. They are actually natural harmonies; we live with them, in tune with all those inequities. We are not apathetic to our environment, it just happens that we live in it, harmoniously, and therefore we don’t see what you see.

And before you criticize us, look at yourself. We see gaping holes in you. ‘Those who live in glass houses should not throw stones at others’. You have flaws too, therefore you can’t criticize us.

Ah, you talk about our proud city, Mumbai, and say that it is the rudest city on the planet? We don’t accept your study and its methodologies. They are flawed. You say that we have gone down the index on freedom to press and media? It is flawed too. You are envious of our progress and therefore you rank us low. You say that our country has AIDS and therefore wish to donate millions of dollars? How dare you do that? Do you think we are beggars to accept your money? Moreover, we think it’s your way of ‘unnecessarily’ highlighting the problem and blowing it out of proportion. We have everything under control. In fact, we have just erased two zeros from the number of AIDS patients. See, now everything looks perfect.

And please don’t write books that show us the stark truth. We are not used to seeing our flaws in the mirror. Don’t write about anti-Sikh riots of 1984, we will ban it. Don’t show our gods in nude, we will ban them. Oh, what about the ones in our temples? We prefer not to look at them. The temples are so dark anyway. We catch a glimpse of our God, ask what we want, and we quickly get out without admiring any of the architectures.

And please don’t use our gods on your T-shirts, sandals, toilet seats, and don’t use them on your CD covers. We will protest, use our muscle power to make sure you won’t sell any of that stuff.

Please don’t write anything generalizing Indians. We are completely oblivious to color of the skin. We don’t care whether you are black or white. Our Lord Krishna was actually dark. We don’t use any creams to become fair. It’s just a marketing gimmick; you can’t base your argument on that. We are not racist. We are just class-conscious. We are just following our ancient texts which clearly lay out the principles of natural hierarchy which when followed only reflects the harmonious balances of the universe as seen by Supreme Being.

Don’t criticize our Vaastu. Don’t you have Feng-Shui? Our Vaastu is far more advanced and scientific than your Feng-Shui. Don’t you know that if your plot is in the shape of a turtle, you are bound to die? Your website sucks? Use Vaastu. Our ancestors anticipated websites much before you could even read or write. They have laid down all the rules for making a good website thousands of years ago. Once you follow these rules, positive cosmic energies will flow through your website, making it successful. It’s all written in Vaastu, you just need to understand it. We have many experts. We can export some to you.

And please don’t even go near our national issues. We strictly do not tolerate any discussions on our national integrity. If you feel that any of our people are unhappy, then you have no idea what you are talking. All of our people are very happy with us. It’s just that we have bad neighbors who keep sending these unhappy elements into our country. And stop writing anything to solve it, we consider it sedition and we will pack you off to jails. Already, we have POTA, TADA, and many other such acronyms; you will fit into one of them for sure. And then you are history.

Please don’t tell us about tolerance. We ARE tolerant. Don’t you know that Hinduism preaches "sarva-dharma-samabhava"? It’s inherent in us to be tolerant. And if you say anything more, we will crush you and shove all our tolerant principles down your throats.

We are diverse. Look at our people; they come in all shapes and customs, all languages and religions. We don’t know much about them, their culture, or their identities, but so what? Can you speak as many languages as we do?

And yes, our governments bodies, academic bodies and industry is completely filled with upper caste Hindu groups, and that's because they are good at them. Those who are not good at them are given other menial jobs. This is our definition of diversity; you don’t have to teach us what it is. Your civilization is only few thousands years old. We are more than ten thousands years old. Don’t you know the new archeological expedition sponsored by Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi dates us way back into end of Ice Age? We are pre-historic. You are kids in front of us.

We don’t like to get our people converted to other religions. Yes, we believe in freedom to practice a religion, but we believe one should practice the religion he is born into; not convert. Conversion is against the natural order prescribed in our ancient texts. Just imagine if all your blacks suddenly became white, wouldn’t that upset your natural balance?

Modern Science? Don’t even go there. Our Vedas have all your science combined and ten times more, written in a language that only selected few can understand. It’s just that we can’t really decipher them when we need them. And it usually happens that we understand them only after the Modern Science has clearly explained it, just the way Nostradamus’ prophecies are explained after the events happen. You may think it’s cryptic. For us, it’s very natural. We have no problems in calling airplanes birds, and we look at quarks and atoms as bears and wolves. It’s our way of speaking and alluding to complex physical and mathematical concepts.

How did we derive our alternate sciences? Hmm, we just sat under a tree and meditated for long, and then Behold! Everything became clear and then we wrote it down. Sorry, we don’t believe in empiricism and your Kant’s dialecticism. We arrive at truth in one single stroke. No deduction, no logic, no reasoning, no hard work. That’s why you see so many Indians doing nothing, sitting and sipping chai, trying to look for answers to the world’s problems, while you waste away your time in labs doing unnecessary research and engineering.

We are Indians. Let us be the way we are. We don’t like to be criticized. We know enough about you and we are smart enough to find loop holes in all your arguments and send you back home with tails between your legs. We don’t like to be corrected. We are already correct. We don’t like to improve. We are already perfect. We don’t need to learn anything from you; we are all learned pundits here.

So, please don’t tell us anything negative about us. It’s not welcome here. We get really pissed off when someone does that. We will call you a traitor, an enemy, a fool, and abuse you, and threaten you to shut up. If need be, we will come to your home, raid your works, burn up your paintings, shut down the theatres, and run around the streets with a sense of accomplishment.

Yes, we are peevish, and we are proud of it. After all, we are Indians!